Originally posted to Data Center Frontier by Voices of the Industry.

IMG_0317The promise of automation looms large over many industries in 2017. For many data center managers and IT professionals, automation has already been a major asset to their day-to-day lives. For others, automation remains an untapped resource for increasing IT efficiency and infrastructure capabilities. Regardless of where your data center team may be along the spectrum, below are some best practices for implementing or continuing your automation strategy within the data center.

Start Small and Build

Making the switch from manual to automated tasks doesn’t have to happen overnight, and it’s unlikely that 100% of your processes within the data center will all be automated. Start with concentrated segments of your infrastructure that are simple to establish and likely to yield the largest time or cost-savings. There’s always room to expand, but if done incorrectly at the start, tasks that were supposed to be automated now turn into massive manual time sinks that put the entire IT team on their back foot.

For teams that have already begun implementing automated processes, do you have an accurate, holistic picture of how it’s going? Press pause to evaluate where early investments have seen a positive return and think strategically about how to build out this offering to other segments of your infrastructure that make the most sense.

To read the full article, please click here.